Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd (清華紫光) has clinched as much as 150 billion yuan (US$22 billion) of financing from two Chinese government-backed investors, amassing a pool of funds to pursue acquisitions and build a world-class semiconductor industry.
The state-linked chipmaker is to receive 100 billion yuan from China Development Bank (國家開發銀行), a policy lender overseen by the Cabinet, in the years until 2020.
It is to get another 50 billion yuan from a national chip fund set up in 2014 to drive advances in domestic semiconductors, Unigroup said in a statement on its Web site.
The company did not describe how the capital would be deployed, but Unigroup has been an aggressive acquirer and capacity-builder, the standard-bearer for an effort to wean China off its reliance on foreign technology.
It is building a US$30 billion memorychip production complex in Nanjing that is to become China’s largest when completed. It is also preparing to expand its memory and storage facilities in Wuhan.
The capital injection “is poised to lend strong support to Unigroup’s rapid expansion in the industry” and “speed the process of technology upgrades and lift our core competitiveness,” the company said in a statement after signing the agreements with the two investors.
China is spending an estimated US$150 billion over 10 years to try to achieve a leading position in semiconductor design and manufacturing, an ambitious plan that US executives and officials have warned could harm US interests.
Unigroup, an affiliate of the business arm of Tsinghua University, has become the largest semiconductor player in a nation dependent on imports for components such as high-performance processors and 3D-NAND chips.
Unigroup and other Tsinghua affiliates have pulled off a number of acquisitions, including of RDA Microelectronics Inc (銳迪科) and Spreadtrum Communications Inc (展訊通信), to beef up their design capability.
They have also signed partnership deals with global players including Western Digital Corp.
However, the merger and acquisition spree has hit a wall of late — Tsinghua was forced to withdraw a planned investment in Western Digital after the deal threatened to invite US government scrutiny, while a Taiwanese acquisition also fell through.
The company’s major business units and affiliates include IC developer Unigroup Guoxin Co (紫光國芯), formed via a series of mergers of state-backed entities, and Changjiang Storage (長江儲存), which was the result of a merger between Unigroup’s own memorychip operations and a government-run factory last year.
Anna Bhobho, a 31-year-old housewife from rural Zimbabwe, was once a silent observer in her home, excluded from financial and family decisionmaking in the deeply patriarchal society. Today, she is a driver of change in her village, thanks to an electric tricycle she owns. In many parts of rural sub-Saharan Africa, women have long been excluded from mainstream economic activities such as operating public transportation. However, three-wheelers powered by green energy are reversing that trend, offering financial opportunities and a newfound sense of importance. “My husband now looks up to me to take care of a large chunk of expenses,
SECTOR LEADER: TSMC can increase capacity by as much as 20 percent or more in the advanced node part of the foundry market by 2030, an analyst said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to lead its peers in the advanced 2-nanometer process technology, despite competition from Samsung Electronics Co and Intel Corp, TrendForce Corp analyst Joanne Chiao (喬安) said. TSMC’s sophisticated products and its large production scale are expected to allow the company to continue dominating the global 2-nanometer process market this year, Chiao said. The world’s largest contract chipmaker is scheduled to begin mass production of chips made on the 2-nanometer process in its Hsinchu fab in the second half of this year. It would also hold a ceremony on Monday next week to
TECH CLUSTER: The US company’s new office is in the Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City, a new AI industry base and cybersecurity hub in southern Taiwan US chip designer Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) yesterday launched an office in Tainan’s Gueiren District (歸仁), marking a significant milestone in the development of southern Taiwan’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry, the Tainan City Government said in a statement. AMD Taiwan general manager Vincent Chern (陳民皓) presided over the opening ceremony for the company’s new office at the Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City (沙崙智慧綠能科學城), a new AI industry base and cybersecurity hub in southern Taiwan. Facilities in the new office include an information processing center, and a research and development (R&D) center, the Tainan Economic Development Bureau said. The Ministry
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
RSS